eBay announced last week that it has signed an agreement with Cox Automotive to acquire Motors.co.uk, a UK classifieds marketplace for cars.
Subject to the deal closing successfully, Motors.co.uk would become part of Gumtree UK, an eBay Classifieds business. Combining the inventory, customer relationships and traffic available on Gumtree UK, eBay Motors UK and Motors.co.uk, along with Motors.co.uk’s cutting-edge tools and services, would help UK car dealers increase their leads and bring buyers more choice and value, they say in the announcement.
They also say that the acquisition would also jointly position Motors.co.uk, Gumtree UK, and eBay Motors UK — which together offer more than 620,000 car listings — as a leading alternative to the current UK motors market leader. The move builds on the joint offering of Gumtree UK Motors and eBay UK Motors that launched in January 2018, enabling car dealers in the UK to easily reach customers on both platforms and gives buyers access to more listings.
This acquisition would finally present a viable car selling and shopping alternative for car dealers and buyers. By combining Motors.co.uk’s extensive inventory, dealer engagements, traffic and cutting-edge tools and services with the considerable audience of in-market car buyers provided by eBay and Gumtree, this acquisition would give UK car dealers a significantly broader reach.
– Matt Barham, General Manager, Gumtree UK
Motors.co.uk, a subsidiary of Cox Automotive, and is understood to be one of the UK’s largest dealer-facing brands with over 350,000 used car listings on its platform. They say a robust suite of tools is tailored specifically to the automotive vertical, helping over 5,000 of the UK’s leading car dealers to sell their cars, utilize buyer data in marketing and pricing decisions and expand reach through a large syndication network.
eBay has not disclosed the cost of the acquisition in the announcement made on Friday. And also the deal is subject to regulatory approval but is currently expected to close during the first quarter of 2019.
